The Lord Ptinum dragged him out of the temporary holding cell of the strange Jinn facility. Volithur did nothing to protect himself and colpsed face first into the metal grating that served as the floor. “Do you want to be tortured for real?”

  Volithur didn’t respond. He felt that his death was close now. They couldn’t prevent it from stealing him away. Anything they did to motivate him would only hasten his ultimate escape. How sad it was that his highest aspiration was to not be.

  The world around them was not real. His experience traveling made that obvious. It was a tiny, artificial isnd among the wildness of primordial chaos. Aside from him, the Lord Ptinum, and her porter, there were no other Xian around. There were plenty of Arahant and Jinn, though.

  Throughout the strange experience, Volithur asked no questions. He simply drifted through the ruins that remained of his life, numb to everything. He didn’t know why a Xian Lord had sold him to the enemies of her kind. He didn’t know why they wanted him to push cosmic energy into their strange engine. Nor did he care to seek answers.

  The only goal he retained at this point was to embrace oblivion. Volithur squeezed his eyes shut to stem the tide of tears. He didn’t deserve the release of crying. Not at the end of things. He wouldn’t hide from the pain now that he knew it wouldn’t linger endlessly.

  “You couldn’t bring us anyone remotely useful for this operation?” The observing Jinn mented. “We’re trying to save all of humanity and you contribute garbage?”

  The Lord Ptinum clenched her fist. “He has a true insight that makes him uniquely suited for the task.”

  “Which might matter if he were a willing subject,” the Jinn said.

  “I can motivate him to power your damn engine.”

  “Easy, Lord Ptinum,” a female Arahant said. “Perhaps we could consider gentler methods of persuasion? If your prisoner knew what was at stake, he might volunteer.”

  “He’s a damn Xian,” the Jinn man grunted. “No offense, Ptinum.”

  “He’s already dying,” the Arahant said. “And this is the noblest sacrifice possible. Let me try.”

  The Lord Ptinum gnced towards her porter. “I can’t remain here for long. Since you question my methods, I’ll leave the task of motivating Harridan to you. Remember that I need his body once you’re done with it. I have an elixir to make.”

  “But of course, Lord Ptinum. Thank you again for your assistance.” Those words came from the Arahant woman. When a transit sphere spirited away the lord and her porter, the Jinn man made a rude gesture at the empty air. “Damn Xian. We shouldn’t be taking a half-dead prisoner for this job. One of their lords should be volunteering.”

  “They don’t believe in our methods,” the woman responded. “They don’t like Jinn technology or Arahant ritual. How could they ever approve of the combination?”

  “The Dream Engine needs cosmic energy as an emulsifier. We can’t harmonize our efforts without it. This cretin’s resistance is going to ruin our entire operation. We were promised he would be able to provide the equivalent of a Lord’s energy output.”

  The woman cleared her throat. “Would you consider letting him visit our special guest?”

  The Jinn sighed. “Special guest? Oh, that one. Yeah. Fine. The lord is gone and this creature won’t ever have the chance to tell its kind we’re hosting a Yazata. I’m going to run another calibration. Page me if the Xian decides to cooperate.”

  Soft hands pulled Volithur onto his side, then cradled him to carry him through the industrial facility like he was a bride. The loss of his limbs and the wasting of his body over the past year had made him a frail creature indeed.

  “You know,” the woman said, “we are asking you to give your life for one of the most monumental engineering tasks in the history of any people. I’d say it’s even more significant than what they are doing in the Reality Interface project on Union Central. It will save countless lives.”

  Volithur didn’t respond. Withholding his aid was the only power he had left. He wanted to inflict some of his misery on those around him. When pced onto the floor, Volithur let his eyes go out of focus as he stared aimlessly towards the ceiling. His failing body didn’t grant him much heat for hate. Not of his captors nor even for himself. He was just tired and sad and more than a little petty.

  Slowly he became aware of a figure squatting above him, glowing yellow eyes staring down. “This one is critical to the initialization of the Dream Engine?”

  “That is unfortunately the case, holy one. He is immune to any form of persuasion we have at our disposal here. We’ve been trying to recruit another Xian, but none of their Lords will accept a death sentence.”

  The creature with glowing eyes spoke once more in its soft, gender-neutral voice. “The Arahant and Jinn have sacrificed prominent personages to the cause. Do the Xian really care so little for their fellow humans?”

  “They are Xian,” the woman said. “They are profoundly selfish creatures.”

  “Does this one understand what is at stake?”

  “He is near death and does not care to listen.”

  The glowing creature turned its attention to Volithur. “Do you know what I am?” Before thinking about it, Volithur shook his head. He’d been making a point to not respond to questions in any way.

  “I am a Yazata. An emissary of the Garuda. Do you know of them?”

  Volithur focused his attention on the glowing eyes of the creature above him. His voice rasped when he spoke his answer. “No.”

  “They are the natural enemies of the Dragons. Would you care to hear of ancient secrets, human? I can tell you of events that predate humanity. Events that predate even your true worlds.”

  For a few moments, Volithur remained unresponsive. Then, his mild curiosity got the better of him and he shrugged. What could listening to this person’s story hurt?

  The glowing Yazata nodded in acceptance. “You surely know of the Dragons. Those creatures of violence of destruction, inimical to all that we value, came to be only after the death of their mother Tiamat. She was the original monster, a vast and horrid existence, a blight upon higher order reality where resided many great entities.

  “Tiamat brought discord, disease, and death to many. Her form, so much as she had a single form, looked like a vast sphere composed of thousands of snakes, with their hungry mouths turned outward to strike at everything within range. Tiamat hungered constantly. She threatened all who existed in that time before time, beings whose might could effortlessly shatter a human world.

  “She was the ultimate threat. Many fled from her. Others hid. A few fought back. Yet none were successful until the Ophanim intervened. The Ophanim, the Multitude Who Are One. Though they never feared Tiamat for their own sake, the Ophanim chose to fight on behalf of those who could not defend themselves.

  “A battle raged the likes of which existence had never witnessed before and never will again. Within the bounds of higher order reality, they fought throughout time, at levels conceptually as well as physically and mentally. There are no words to describe that battle. I can only say that its level of violence was beyond your comprehension and that the very nature of reality still resonates with the actions undertaken during it.

  “At the end, Tiamat died. From her corpse arose the Dragons. The snake-like heads tore free to escape further persecution. The Ophanim had likewise been greatly reduced. The substance of its many destroyed bodies littered the ndscape of chaos, forever lost to the greater whole. The surviving Ophanim went into seclusion, never to be seen again.

  “But death is seldom so simple within the ultimate reality. From the corpse of Tiamat arose a tainted miasma which birthed a new generation of monsters, creatures born of chaos and hatred for all things reted to the Ophanim. Likewise from the corpses of the Ophanim arose descendants. Most prominent among these are the Garuda, whose purpose has become to rediscover the lost knowledge of their lineage. Also born were five unique entities. Entities who, simir to their parent, were bound to each other through resonance: separate and united all at once.

  “Those five entities are what you know as the five true worlds of humanity. Maya of the Arahants, Terra of the Jinn, Tian of the Xian, Eden of the Alfar, and Aes shared by the Orisha and Titans. Your worlds – your universes – are siblings to the Garuda. And as children of the Ophanim, they are also hated by the monsters and Dragons.

  “Your worlds are at grave risk, young Xian. The true worlds and the unempowered worlds as well. They will all die unless action is taken. The Garuda cannot deal across time in the same way that the Ophanim of old could. They must be linear and cautious in their dealings. They fear non-existence. At the same time, they would aid their siblings.

  “So they created my kind to educate and guide humanity. We… were not well received. Very few of us remain. I am here at this facility, young Xian, because if you do not energize the Dream Engine, then I will sacrifice my existence to do so in your pce. I believe it critically important to the survival of humanity across all its many worlds.”

  For a time, Volithur stared at the Yazata. “What does the engine do?”

  The Yazata gnced to the side. “Regina? I believe this is your area of expertise.”

  “The Dream Engine connects to the echoes of consciousness from recently deceased humans. It will synchronize with any mind with a significant enough grounding. That means people who had deep knowledge like true insights or conceptual realms. The Jinn algorithms identify cognitive matches between living minds and the sequestered echoes. The shape of a recipient mind needs to be close enough to the donor for the deep knowledge to transfer.

  “It is absolutely impossible to grant someone a true insight. What we can do is give someone the memory of another person gaining that insight. Providing there is a strong enough match, the recipient of the memories should be able to replicate the insight. Essentially, we will point the Dream Engine at an unempowered world and cause the humans there to learn a lifetime of knowledge and skills by experiencing someone else’s existence first hand.”

  The Yazata stared at Volithur. “Though your life may end, young Xian, your memory may live on. Countless millions among the unempowered worlds might remember your entire life and inherit the insight you hold.”

  Volithur flinched back. “No.”

  “You don’t wish to be remembered?”

  His eyes grew hot. “No. Never. I wouldn’t wish my memories upon anyone. Let my disaster of a life be forgotten. Erase me from history.”

  The woman stepped back into his line of sight. “When it is initially powered up, the Dream Engine will connect to the memories of the deceased. If you are the one in the battery compartment, then it won’t be able to take your echo. If you continue to refuse, however, they will kill you. Your memories will be spread to countless others because you weren’t the one to power the Dream Engine.”

  Volithur turned away to hide the tears that began to slip free. He just wanted an end. “The Engine will help the unempowered people?”

  “It will grant them the power to protect themselves,” the Yazata said. “Uncountable lives would be saved, Young Xian.”

  The woman spoke hard and fast. “Grant power to the unempowered, save one of the st Yazata, and ensure your memory isn’t spread. All you have to do is feed energy through your domain into the battery compartment. The alternative is worse in every way.”

  Volithur closed his eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it.”